A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating things again. I've been busy working on my Skins Big Bang fic as the deadline is now just a month away. That, and I've been focussing on Paint It Red, the new Mentalist fan forum. We currently have the ficathon and artathon running. If you're interested, the link is in my profile.

Thank you to: Brown Eyes Parker, WinchesterSmile, living-and-thriving, glouton-mana, Frogster, MerriWyllow, TeresaLisbonCBI and Divinia Serit for reviewing part three. Especially so to glouton-mana, who signed in anonymously.

I'll try and update soon, but I can't make any promises.

x tromana

Part Four

"No, I don't believe it."

Cho nodded slightly and she gazed defiantly at him. Lisbon could tell that he had expected her to say those very words; that he had thought it so typical at her. Then again, it wasn't as if he had brought her solid proof. It was all supposition and theory, simply based on Jane acting unusually during an interrogation. Besides, who exactly behaved normally under those kind of circumstances? She could remember the time when she had been falsely accused of murder, recall exactly what it was like to feel like everything she had worked towards had been slipping through her fingers. The quickening of her pulse rate as she answered the questions on the polygraph and the way those who were meant to care about her seemed to shun her. How they didn't even need proof to assume her guilt. And he had been put into exactly that situation, except for the key fact that they had the cold, hard evidence to show was responsible.

However, if it were true and Jane had been hypnotized, well that changed things. It meant that Jane hadn't been acting out of his own free will, that his actions were induced. Of course, it didn't change the fact that he had wanted to kill Red John, nor did it mean he hadn't murdered somebody. Whatever they said, however it was glossed up, he had still shot a man at close range and watched as he took his last strangled breath. All in a busy shopping mall, with security cameras and countless witnesses. The problems would come with proving it.

If they could, it did mean, however, that he could claim diminished capacity. That death could be wiped clean off the table. Not that any of them suspected Jane would be sentenced with the death penalty. He had caught too many criminals, done too much good for the state of California for them to deal him the ultimate punishment. Then again, for somebody like Patrick Jane, jail would be a fate worse than death. He would be confined to a cell for twenty three hours a day, only leaving for exercise and a quick shower. Lisbon knew that Cho had specifically requested solitary confinement, thanks to the file resting lightly on her lap. It made sense though; putting Jane in Pelican Bay meant they might as well have painted a target on his back while they were at it. As far as the rest of the inmates were concerned, he was the enemy. It was his fault they were there, not their own arrogance or recklessness. Lisbon ran her right hand through her hair and sighed heavily. How could she accept this? If Cho and Rigsby were right, how could they prove it?

"Why not?" Cho asked eventually, after placing his coffee on the table.

"Because it's Jane," Lisbon answered quickly, not sure where the words were coming from. "He wouldn't let himself get hypnotized, would he? He'd know if somebody was doing it to him."

"It's not that easy to tell, you know," Rigsby replied, speaking from experience. "If he trusted the person enough, then they might have been able to slip under his radar."

"Oh really?"

Lisbon could count the number of people Jane trusted on one hand and still have fingers left. Realistically, the only person Patrick Jane appeared to trust entirely was himself. Before all this, she liked to think that he trusted her too, or thereabouts, but it was a close call. There were times when he let her in, when she thought she was getting somewhere. But then, he'd pull back, close himself off again, as if he had never had any reason to allow her into his inner sanctum.

"Or if it's just someone you wouldn't expect to have those skills, I guess," Rigsby added.

With a sigh, she opened the folder and read through the case notes once more. It seemed like everything Cho and Rigsby had done in the past couple of days had made the cast cast-iron. Even Jane himself would be lucky to find a loophole into this one. They had covered every avenue and more. Had tracked down Red John's identity, proven that he had links to all of his previous cases and of course, that Jane was the one to take the law into his own hands. If they were right and what they suspected was correct, then that would mean they had to go back to the drawing board. That the whole file could essentially be burned to a crisp and they would have to start again.

For a start, it meant that somebody close to Jane had managed to hypnotize him. Technically, anybody in the team could be a suspect, including the three of them, and Van Pelt too. Then, there was Hightower, Bertram, LaRoche, countless other members of staff within the CBI, members of the general public. Heck, even Red John himself could have hypnotized him shortly before allowing Jane to kill him. She shuddered at the morbid thought. That took the concept of assisted suicide to extremes. And it also meant that if Jane were in a trance, it would be incredibly difficult to work out the way to get him out of it.

"But that would mean…"

"We know," Cho interrupted with a slight nod. "Can you work on this during your leave?"

"Yes, of course, but the case is…"

"Good, because we can't," he answered, silencing her in a second. "The case is closed."

"But if I'm just happening to read old case files during my absence and stumble across something, it's fine?"

"Something like that," Cho said and stood. "Thanks for the coffee, boss."

"Bye," Rigsby added, with a reassuring smile. "I hope you're feeling better soon."

They both saw themselves out and left Lisbon, perched on the edge of her couch. Her television screen still showed a still of Jane, mid-sentence. He looked as calm and collected as ever and yet, even in a motionless picture, there was something off about his posture. With a little discomfort, she grabbed the remote control and switched it off. She couldn't handle looking at it much longer.

Then, there was the decision between resting, as she had intended before the interruption, or starting to research.

Immediately, she picked her laptop up off the floor and switched it on.

xxx

A gruff call at the door demanded that he should step back and Patrick Jane obliged. There was no point in making work hard for the prison wardens; the staff at Pelican Bay simply had a job to do. It was also rather depressing, dealing with convicts day in day out, the vast majority of whom had committed horrendous crimes. It certainly wasn't conducive to a bright and positive workplace. Besides, most of his fellow inmates were determined to make life difficult for those who worked at the prison. Thankfully for the staff, Jane wasn't among them. That was mostly because he had expected to be caught and tried and was therefore, entirely ready for this eventuality. It was the least he deserved for killing somebody. And besides, he had no intention of laying a finger on another soul. He'd set out to kill Red John and achieved his goal. Everyone else behind bars had been stunned that the law had caught up with them and their stupidity.

"You have a visitor."

"I do?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

Jane looked at the warden, Kenneth, and gave him a sunny smile. The man frowned in response and completely ignored Jane's question. Even though he had been imprisoned for barely three days, Kenneth already seemed to loathe working with him. That was mostly because Jane managed to catch him off-guard every time he set foot in the cell. That and, like the majority of the staff, he resented Jane for taking the law into his own hands. He was almost, though not quite, on a par with cops who became killers.

"Hands."

The handcuffs felt cool against his wrists. A necessary precaution, he knew. It was standard procedure, but even so, they couldn't trust Jane as far as they could throw him. He wouldn't have been surprised if they had learned about his last stint in jail; the only reason the courts hadn't pursued his breakout was because Bosco had been convinced to drop the matter. They knew he was clever enough to escape, if he put his mind to it. However, he didn't have any intentions of doing so. Technically, he was already in enough trouble and it had gotten to the stage where he might as well let the courts decide his fate.

As he was guided into a small, locked, room, Jane began to question the situation. Of course, he had filed a request of visitation from the whole team, though he doubted any of them respond. Cho and Rigsby had already made their feelings clear on the matter. Van Pelt was probably still shell-shocked from O'Laughlin's betrayal and as for Lisbon…

Well. It was probably best not to be thinking of her right now. She'd be fine, eventually. She always got through things like this. And sooner or later, she would come to terms with what he'd done.

Suffice to say, he didn't expect it to be any of them. If his lawyer hadn't dropped by yesterday evening, Jane would have expected him to walk through the door. However, when Gale Bertram sat opposite him, Jane couldn't help but be somewhat surprised. The director of the CBI had been pretty much at the bottom of the list of people Jane had expected to visit him while in jail. Admittedly, the list hadn't been particularly long to start with, but it didn't matter. Why did the Bertram even want to see him? Surely he had a whole manner of crises to be dealing with right now? Especially considering he had their famous consultant imprisoned, agents injured or on compassionate leave, had falsely accused Madeleine Hightower of murder and allowed a mole from the FBI, no less, to sneak around the CBI unnoticed. Visiting him should have been so far down the agenda that it would have been forgotten about for years.

And yet, here he was, sitting opposite him.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Patrick."

"Thank you for visiting."

They fell into an uncomfortable silence, with neither of them sure what to say. Jane hadn't really had much interaction with Bertram, why would he? There was little that he needed to say to the man during his time at the CBI. Even Lisbon only spoke to him on rare occasions, if a case was deemed high profile enough for the brass to be involved. So, it felt even more unusual to have him visit. He had no personal connection to Jane, apart from the fact he had made the CBI's closed case rate look exceptional. That, and he also significantly increased the number of complaints and threatened to quit on a yearly basis. If anything, for Bertram, Jane had been a double-edged sword. One of their best minds coupled with one of their worst personalities.

"Why are you here?" Jane asked, eventually breaking the silence.

"To offer you my support," Bertram answered, having clearly prepared for the conversation. "You may appear to be a guilty man, but in reality you have saved us a great deal of work. We should be grateful."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Not only that, but you've closed countless cases and until now, had nothing but given us nothing but a positive perception in the media."

Jane remained silent and instead, drummed his fingers against the plastic table. He was skeptical; Bertram had always appeared to be one of those men who followed the letter of the law in a black and white manner. The fact that he was being so relentlessly positive about what Jane had done was, frankly, bizarre. Everybody else from the CBI was shunning him and rightfully so. They had warned him against doing this and in some cases, begged him not to. All their threats and pleas had been willfully ignored and inevitably, he had angered the few people who were foolish enough to care about him.

"You look doubtful?"

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"You killed Red John, one of California's Most Wanted. In addition to the rest of the work you've done for us, we should be giving you awards, not locking you up like this," Bertram answered back. "Unfortunately, that's not how the law sees it."

The director of the CBI leaned over and squeezed Jane's left shoulder tightly.

"You'll be alright, Patrick."

TBC…